I know I sound like a broken record over here, but I’m serious – this was a high-fives-all-around meal!!! Kent said, “This is what French Onion Soup is supposed to taste like.” Then he talked about driving to Vermont as a child and eating French Onion Soup in a quaint little tavern on the way home. I love a meal that is super nourishing, evokes pleasant memories from your childhood, and even makes new memories at the same time. It’s THAT good!

Start with homemade broth

I make a batch of broth about once a week! A good homemade bone broth is THE non-negotiable ingredient in any good soup, IMHO. The Healthy Home Economist has a great video on making homemade broth here.

I order whole chickens, chicken carcasses, chicken heads and feet (which is where you get rich gelatin – a better-absorbed source of glucosamine and chondroitin than a supplement), and beef soup bones all from our farmer who raises his animals on pasture, which means they eat food that makes them clean and healthy with no added hormones or antibiotics. Last week, I don’t know why, but I mixed chicken and beef bones together in the crock pot. I also had some leek tops in the freezer that I had saved for the next time I made broth. I added my usual carrots, celery, and onion to the leek tops and let it simmer on low for a few days (maybe three). I also added some egg shells (for bioavailable calcium). The broth was a deep dark brown and soooooo rich! I thought it would be perfect for a French Onion Soup. After I strained the bits out, I put it the liquid broth in glass jars in the fridge and forgot about it. Did I mention things get crazy fast over here? A few days later, Kent said he was dreaming about having French Onion Soup and did we have any onions? I said, I have the perfect broth already made. Sidenote: I like to keep broth ready to go in the fridge (enough for a large batch of soup) at all times, but sometimes I freeze it in large yogurt containers (they pop out easily because there is no lip at the top of the plastic containers). This would have been just as easy to make from frozen broth, if you don’t happen to have any in the fridge. Also, when I pulled the stock out of the fridge, it was a thin liquid, not a jelly consistency, so I added two tablespoons of bovine gelatin (I bought mine here).

I mostly followed the Nourishing Traditions recipe, except that I used yellow onions instead of red, and I didn’t have any cognac. According to the recipe, you slice 4-5 onions (I used 4, but 5 would have been even better – they cook down A LOT!) and add to four tablespoons of butter in the cast iron pan on the lowest possible heat for two hours! Then raise the heat and cook for a few more minutes, stirring constantly – until the onions turn brown but are not burned. Then you add two quarts of broth/stock, 1/2 cup red wine, 1/2 cup cognac (I didn’t). Then bring to a rapid boil and skim off any foam that rises to the top. Then add two tablespoons arrowroot powder mixed with two tablespoons water (I shake it up in a mason jar with the lid on tight).

We put slices of sourdough bread in the bowls and ladled the soup on top of that. Then we put a thick layer of raw Swiss cheese (Baby Swiss from our farmer) and put it under the broiler for a minute or two until the cheese is nice and brown, but stay close because it’ll burn fast!

And then enjoy!!!

And then come back here and tell me how good it was in the comments =)